


Lost in Pining

by Shujinkakusama



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Kissing, Requited Love, Sloppy Makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 09:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8322784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: Pearl misses many things. Mostly, she misses kissing Garnet. And she's determined to rectify it. // Pearlnet, kissing, fluff, PWP.





	

Whispered kisses weren’t quite a thing of the impossibly distant past, but it had been a long while—years, if Pearl were to be frank—since she and Garnet had indulged, had even considered…

 

Pearl supposed that was her own fault. In the years following Greg Universe’s arrival in their lives, she’d become reclusive. Clinging exclusively to Rose Quartz had been her own doing, her foolish act of rebellion, and it had taken years to realize how badly that must have hurt Garnet. Garnet had been her lover as much as Rose—statistically, perhaps more, over the eons—but Rose had been different. _Greg_ had been different. Pearl couldn’t ignore her jealousy, and that jealousy turned to fixation. Pearl obsessed over Rose Quartz, clung to her, followed her like a shadow. But it hadn’t always been that way, had never been exclusive between them, and never would be again.

 

They had all been together before, after all.

 

The remnants of the original Crystal Gems had always had _something_ between them, some rolling, churning, _special_ energy that Pearl couldn’t quite explain. It hadn’t quite extended to Amethyst—but then, Amethyst never seemed interested. Not in kissing or… other things. Bismuth had been included, for a time. Before her disappearance.

 

It had been over fifteen years, and Pearl wondered feverishly whether Garnet were over what they’d shared. Late nights in her room were spent pondering things she couldn’t bring herself to speak aloud, wishing her fingers were Garnet’s instead, yearning for more than the illusion her projection abilities could offer.

 

But Garnet seemed content with what they had now—which wasn’t much by comparison. Little, brief, chaste moments of contact were a far cry from passionate embraces of long ago.

 

Pearl thought, perhaps, that she missed kissing the most. It was the most nonsensical excuse for contact—Gem contact was more intimate, more pleasurable, and there was an endless array of options they could re-explore—but there was something about kissing Garnet that made her feel several stories taller, filled her to the brim with light and love and energy that even Rose hadn’t poured into her. She missed that.

 

She missed many other things.

 

But Garnet had always been the one to make the first move before; now she endured Pearl clinging to her arm and shoulder, but rarely reached back. After too many days awake on her feet, Pearl would take shelter against Garnet’s side, pressed her face into her arm, and Garnet let her, sometimes wrapping an arm gingerly around narrow shoulders or splaying her palm across her lower back.

 

Garnet let her do many things. Some of those things were foolish. Some of them were brilliant. Pearl was allowed unmeasured freedom on Earth, and that freedom wasn’t without consequence. They both had it, both had choices now, both made mistakes—

 

Even if Pearl’s were catastrophically worse.

 

Even if Pearl had almost ruined _everything_.

 

Garnet didn’t speak to her for days after they left the Communications Hub; it was weeks before the air didn’t crackle around her at close quarters. By the time they were on speaking terms again, by the time Garnet had granted her another chance, everything was in shambles.

 

Pearl didn’t dare to dream that Garnet would kiss her now.

 

It was a shock when Garnet reached for her the first time. The second time, Pearl almost burst into tears. Garnet’s hand ghosted over the crest of her head, fingers brushed her Gem, and she praised her for her efforts in Steven’s Robolympics. It was a step forward. Baby steps.

 

Pearl made many steps forward, but she always felt like she was sliding back more than anything else. She tried to be strong, tried to be smart, tried to be everything Rose had ever wanted her to be and more—but what Rose would have wanted, what she wanted now, didn’t entirely mesh, didn’t coincide. She wanted to be what Garnet had most need of, and that was to be _herself_ , and Pearl didn’t truly understand how to make that into a reality.

 

The knight didn’t know what to do with that dissonance. Pearl wanted to speak to Garnet, to explain the knot of feelings in her chest, but she so often choked on it that she tried not to speak at all. They had other things to worry about. She shouldn’t be selfish.

 

_I’m getting there. I’m getting better._

_Is it good enough?_

Pearl didn’t ask, and Garnet couldn’t answer.

 

But Garnet held her arm sometimes, and Pearl wanted little else than to hold her in return, to never, ever let go, and—

 

Bismuth didn’t help, not really. Bismuth made the past fresh and crisp and bright, made it bleed into the present. That she was only there for a day didn’t truly matter; Garnet pulled Pearl close the way she had five thousand years ago, and if Steven hadn’t been there, Pearl would have kissed her ten times over. She’d nearly kissed _Bismuth_ , too.

 

In the end, she was glad she hadn’t. And in the same thought, she was heartbroken over it. They left Bismuth’s bubble in the boiler room with the others, the only Gem that _wasn’t_ corrupted.

 

Garnet surprised Pearl by coming to her side that night and offering her a shoulder to cry on, and Pearl took it. To her immense surprise, Garnet cried too, and as soon as she realized—really, truly realized—she wrapped her arms around the Fusion and hugged her until the sun came up.

 

Somewhere along the way, the balance had finally shifted in their favor.

 

Garnet’s newfound openness wasn’t unnoticed. Amethyst commented in passing, and Garnet would smile rather than answering. Pearl wondered if her best friend was looking back at her behind her visor, but didn’t ask. Garnet would take her arm, and Pearl would let her, and that was almost enough.

 

Almost.

 

Some weeks later, after Jasper was taken care of, after they’d finally formed Sardonyx again—twice!—without so much as a hitch between them, after the squad of Yellow Diamond’s rubies were cast about the solar system, Pearl approached Garnet.

 

She was finally ready.

 

It had taken ages, but Pearl had finally sorted her feelings out—and she was ready, now, to articulate them. That had been the problem before, the absolute failure to put into words just how much she missed Garnet outside of missing Rose Quartz. Because that was what everything else had boiled down to; all the longing, all the confusion, wrapped in a big pink bundle of sweet laughter and meaningless _purpose_. Garnet was different, _loving_ Garnet was different, and she finally understood that. She’d wanted to kiss Bismuth, but it was different from wanting to kiss Garnet; Pearl had wanted to kiss her once, for old time’s sake, to make up for thousands of years apart—

 

She wanted to kiss Garnet a thousand times over and never, ever stop, and that was after being apart for only a few hours.

 

In that time, Garnet had apparently ignored her share of the chore wheel; Pearl warped into the house to find dishes in the sink and Garnet stretched out on the couch with her arms folded behind her hair. One leg dangled off the side of the couch, and the sun’s fading rays glinted off of her opaque visor, and Pearl’s breath caught in her throat.

 

Even lounging about doing nothing, Garnet had to be the most beautiful Gem alive.

 

Pearl crept closer without a sound, stale breath burning in her lungs, and she hovered briefly, considering for a moment whether to nudge her best friend out of her doze. Garnet’s impressive chest rose and fell easily with measured breaths that reminded Pearl of her own urge to breathe. It was a miracle she didn’t start coughing.

 

“Stars, Garnet,” Pearl whispered, scarcely above a sigh. She perched on the table beside the couch with practiced ease, knees drawn just a little too high. She folded her arms across them, watching the other Gem with unconcealed admiration, smiling softly. For several seconds more she said nothing, watched Garnet’s throat as she breathed, watched for the flare of her nostrils. She’d seen her sleep before, knew her breathing by heart—after five thousand years, it was almost impossible not to.

 

“I miss it,” she murmured abruptly, feeling her cheeks warm a little even though Garnet wasn’t listening. Still, she glanced away, toward the wall, where trinkets and framed pictures looked back at her instead. “What we had. It’s all my fault, I never should have pulled away, and I know… I was terrible, I’ve _been_ terrible, I don't have any right to ask you for another chance, but I’ve missed… little things, how you used to look at me, without your visor, the way you’d laugh _with_ me when we were alone…” she trailed off, shaking her head and smiling sadly. “I miss _kissing_ you, I miss your hand in my hair, I miss braiding yours when it was long. You’re right here, and it’s so silly, and I…”

 

“If you start crying, Pearl, you’ll ruin it,” Garnet said abruptly, peeking out over the rim of her visor. Pearl let out a gasp of surprise, hands flying to cover her mouth as if that would somehow undo her babbling. But Garnet’s lips were quirked up in a faint smile, and she sat upright, reaching to pull Pearl’s hands back, ghosting a soft kiss over her knuckles.

 

“I’m sorry!” Pearl squeaked, flushing a brilliant blue. “I didn’t mean to wake you, and—“

 

“I wasn’t asleep,” Garnet said gently, “I had a feeling you would find me here.”

 

Of course, Pearl thought, cheeks blazing. Future vision. She hung her head in her embarrassment. “You heard all that, then…”

 

“It was starting to feel like eavesdropping,” Garnet admitted, tucking a lock of Pearl’s coral pink hair behind her ear for her. When Pearl didn’t flinch or draw away, she cupped her cheek, and Ruby’s Gem hummed merrily with energy against her cool skin. “But you weren’t finished. Unless it’s my turn.”

 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Pearl protested automatically, and Garnet laughed outright at that, rich and deep and warmer than anything Pearl could think of. She phased away her visor and opened her three eyes, shining in the dying light of the afternoon, and Pearl once again forgot how to breathe.

 

“That may be,” she admitted, leaning in close. “But I think I will anyway.”

 

Pearl waited with baited breath for Garnet to speak, but instead, her best friend stroked along the curve of her cheek, long fingers finding the soft spots beneath her jaw, and it couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds before Pearl was whimpering for more contact. Garnet smiled slyly.

 

“What I need to say, and what you need to hear,” Garnet said slowly, leaning in so that her breath ghosted across Pearl’s lips like something out of a long-forgotten dream. Pearl’s heart was thundering against her ribcage, so loud in her ears that she was certain Garnet could hear it, too. “Is that I love you, even after all this time.”

 

And with that, Pearl dove forward, twenty years of longing spurring her to seal Garnet’s lips with her own, desperate and hungry and full of words she hadn’t quite had the nerve to string together, not yet. Garnet met her with practiced ease, cradling Pearl’s face in her hands and leaning back down onto the couch. Pearl went with her without missing a beat; melted against familiar curves and found purchase for her bony hands against the swell of Garnet’s chest.

 

The sound Garnet made against her lips was everything Pearl had longed for and more, and Pearl nipped her bottom lip playfully, eager to swallow more sweet sounds from her partner. Garnet returned the action in kind, drawing Pearl’s lip into her mouth just enough to lick at the beginnings of bruising there. Pearl let out a shuddering moan, barely breaking the kiss for air, and Garnet grinned lopsidedly up at her.

 

“I missed this, too,” Garnet said in a voice so velvety that Pearl couldn’t help shivering from Gem to toes. The Fusion pressed a soft peck to Pearl’s lips, then to her cheeks, along her jaw and to the barely-exposed pulse point along her throat. She applied suction here, greedily drawing a reedy moan from Pearl, and pulling her closer. Pearl’s leg wound around Garnet’s thigh, and she shifted closer, hands roaming across familiar muscles, taught beneath too-thin material.

 

Pearl keened when Garnet applied teeth to her throat, fully aware that the hickey she was leaving would last for days at least. The alabaster Gem’s hands faltered at Garnet’s sides as she shuddered, cheeks feverishly hot from her blush.

 

“Two choices,” Garnet said abruptly, and Pearl’s wide eyes turned to look up at her, pupils blown. The Fusion nodded toward the Temple door. “Your room or mine. We’ve got about a minute before Steven and Amethyst get home.”

 

Having a minute to decide when her brain was fogged with pleasure was a degree of being put on the spot like none Pearl had ever experienced. That they might get caught hadn’t occurred to her, even though it was a very real, very obvious possibility, in Steven’s room. “Huh?” she managed, trying to process and weigh the question.

 

“My room,” Garnet decided for her, scooping her up in her arms, and Pearl immediately wrapped her arms around her shoulders, offering no protest whatsoever.


End file.
